Diabetes is going to be the least of your problems if you die from liver failure from taking too much selenium.
Selenium has been pushed to the point that much of our food has enriched selenium. Then you take a supplement on top of that without knowing how much is already in your system? I feel like we are playing with fire. Once the damage is done, it is extremely hard to reverse it. In many cases it cannot be reversed.
The government recently made the selenium/prostate cancer study to stop because there was no benefit and a slight increase of risk in prostate cancer and diabetes in the test subjects taking the supplement.
Just because there was a study going on, every supplement company jumped on the band wagon saying there was benefit, when the study said no such thing. Then the South Dakota Wheat growers are trying to market their high selenium grains as a value added product. Gluten is known to be very high in selenium as well as anything processed concentrates protein, vitamins and minerals.
Think of all the foods from animals eating these high selenium grains, plus the added selenium in animal feeds, plus the grains we consume in breads, cereals, and high protein grains such as soybeans, canola, and flax seed.
We are at great risk. Chronic selenium toxicity will sneak up on you, you may not get the typical brittle nails and hair loss. You might get liver failure first, or you might get something else first.
My opinion is that many unexplained problems are a result of this bombardment of selenium on our systems, because it is well documented that selenium toxicity causes reproductive problems, seizures, muscle weakness, numbing and tingling of extremeties, liver and kidney ailments, erosion of bones, and the list goes on and on.
Good grief, why is it that the first thing that comes to someone's mind is deficiency? Because Doctors are just not testing for it. They have no idea if a person is deficient or toxic. They are just guessing. Many symptoms of deficiency and toxicity of selenium are the same.
Try this one on for size: They can't figure out why there is such an increase in autism. Does anyone know how much selenium and other minerals dairy cows are eating? Does anyone know how much selenium is in soy milk? Not all milk is equal, it all depends on what kind of soil the food is grown in.